


Three or Four

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-15
Updated: 2008-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John isn't sure how long he stares at the gate, but it's too long, gives his imagination too much leeway to imagine what's waiting on the other side; the cold, the empty stretch of space, the endless purgatory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three or Four

John isn't sure how long he stares at the gate, but it's too long, gives his imagination too much leeway to imagine what's waiting on the other side; the cold, the empty stretch of space, the endless purgatory. Whatever those _things_ were – are – they have a consciousness; they'll spin aimlessly and they'll dream, they'll think, they'll never come to some stopping point where mind and body part and there's the relief that it's over; they'll just exist, aware, always knowing and . . .

He swallows bile, steadies his breathing by sheer force of will, because that was Elizabeth, no two ways about it – that was the act of someone who'd –

It was the kind of thing he'd do for his team.

He turns on his heel and heads for the armory, drops off all but his sidearm, figures on heading for the mess, and when his stomach protests, the gym. But he's half way to someplace else entirely, stride set to autopilot, when he knows where he's going what he'll find when he gets there: Rodney, hunched over a laptop, fingers flying, mouth set in a bitter, thin line, jacket bunching at his shoulders, hair on end, brow furrowed and –

Exactly. There he is.

"So," John says.

"I can fix it," Rodney says waspishly. "If I just do the work they were going to do, if I just create the machine that can build the bodies – hell, _I_ can build the bodies before we go and bring them back. Give me enough time and I'll work out the hell to do it in space, it's not like they can drift a thousand light years in the next ten minutes, we can gear up, send a 'jumper, we'll . . ." He looks up. "You'll do it, right?"

John's throat is thick and tight with things he'll never say, not on pain of worse than death, of drifting in his own personal, frigid hell, but he nods quickly, sets his hands on his hips, nods again.

"Right, right, I thought so," Rodney says, and looks back at his screen. "It'll take me a little longer than it would them, I don't have – well, there were eight of them, seven pulling their full weight, so that's what, twice my brainpower? And the hands – I can't really make up for that many sets of hands, but I'll figure it out, there has to be a way to just automate some of the circuitry and Radek'll help so it'll take me, what, eighteen, twenty years . . . tops?" His voice falters and he screws his eyes closed and John's across the lab before he really thinks about it, hand at the back of Rodney's neck, saying, "You're like, three or four sets of hands. At least," and Rodney's laughing weakly, leaning his forehead against John's side, and John's stroking the fine hairs at the back of Rodney's neck. "Four or five," John says again. "Swear to god, buddy," and Rodney slips a hand, familiar, into John's back pocket, nods and keeps his eyes closed, just holds on.


End file.
